Like all other novels by Isabel Allende (1942– ), Daughter of Fortune was first written and published in Spanish. In some ways, this story represents a return to the motifs and themes of the author’s earlier works, including her first… Read More ›
Literature
Analysis of Arnold Zweig’s The Crowning of a King
The Crowning of a King is the concluding novel in a sixwork magnum opus, The Great War of the White Man, by German author Arnold Zweig (1887–1968). Zweig called the series of novels about World War I “a literary document… Read More ›
Analysis of Erico Verissimo’s Crossroads
Crossroads is the second of 12 novels written by the Brazilian writer Erico Verissimo (1905–75). In contrast to the writer’s debut novel, Clarissa (1933), in which a teenager’s life is told in a romantic, rather rosy tone, Crossroads is the… Read More ›
Analysis of Maryse Condé’s Crossing the Mangrove
Crossing the Mangrove has been regarded as one of the most self-reflective works of the Guadeloupean-born Maryse Condé (1937– ), particularly in the way the author explores the cultural identity of the Caribbean people. The author’s conscious inclusion of Creole,… Read More ›
Analysis of Shahriar Mandanipour’s The Courage of Love
This important work by the Iranian author Shahriar Mandanipour (1956– ) is a two-volume novel about love, war, earthquake, and pre- and postrevolution Iran. It opens with a prologue entitled “The Four Mothers of Separation.” Four angels—Gabriel, Michael, Seraphim (the… Read More ›
Analysis of André Gide’s The Counterfeiters
The Counterfeiters was first published in Paris in 1926, although its French author, André Gide (1869–1951), began the three-part novel in 1922. A winner of the 1947 Nobel Prize in literature, Gide considered The Counterfeiters his only true novel. Its… Read More ›
Analysis of Paul Bourget’s Cosmopolis
The French novel Cosmopolis, written in 1893 and translated into English the same year, is indicative of the earlier fiction of Paul Bourget (1852–1935), telling the story of a complicated love triangle set against the backdrop of Rome as the… Read More ›
Analysis of Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics
Cosmicomics is a collection of linked short narratives written by the celebrated Italian writer Italo Calvino (1923–85). The stories prove to be a unified meditation on scientific theories of the inception and evolution of the universe as seen through the… Read More ›
Analysis of Mario Vargas Llosa’s Conversation in the Cathedral
Historically and politically important, this novel by Mario Vargas Llosa (1936– ) is based on the social conditions in Peru during the eight-year dictatorship of Manuel A. Odría. Lima, the capital of Peru, is the central stage of the narrative,… Read More ›
Analysis of Thomas Mann’s Confessions of Felix Krull
The works of Thomas Mann (1875– 1955), a distinguished literary figure of the 20th century, epitomize the modern writer. The German author towered above the times in which he lived and has continued to be universally acclaimed, with readers today… Read More ›
Analysis of Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask
Confessions of a Mask, a post war autobiographical novel, subverts the conventions of the traditional and dominant Japanese “I” novel of the 20th century. This book, Yukio Mishima’s (1925–70) first commercial success, received praise from the Japanese literary elite and… Read More ›
Analysis of Ba Jin’s Cold Night
Cold Night is one of the representative works by Ba Jin (1904–2005), a highly respected Chinese novelist. It was finished in the middle of 1940s, when the author changed his literary style from fervid emotionalism to a more dispassionate analysis… Read More ›
Analysis of Vilhelm Moberg’s Clenched Fists
The second book in a two-novel set about life on the remote and isolated Ulvaskog farm in the early 1920s, Clenched Fists describes a time period and a geographical setting very familiar to novelist Karl Artur Vilhelm Moberg (1898–1973). Clenched… Read More ›
Analysis of Abdelrahman Munif’s Cities of Salt
The most celebrated, controversial, and critically acclaimed series of novels by Abdelrahman Munif (1933–2004) merits the title of epic by way of the work’s time span covering many years, the endless chain of memorable characters, and the many plot threads. A… Read More ›
Analysis of Yu Hua’s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant
A tragicomedy, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant relates the story of how Xu Sanguan, a silk factory worker, faces physical pain and sacrifice for the survival of his family. The novel by the Chinese author Yu Hua (1960– ) is… Read More ›
Analysis of Carlo Levi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli
The Italian author and painter Carlo Levi (1902–75) wrote Christ Stopped at Eboli while hiding in a room looking onto Florence’s Palazzo Pitti during the final years of World War II. An Italian Jew, a painter with a degree in… Read More ›
Analysis of Carlos Fuentes’s A Change of Skin
The sixth novel by Carlos Fuentes (1928–2012), A Change of Skin demonstrates his use of nonlinear and irregular time regarding narrative structure. Published in Spanish and in English in 1967, it is considered a complementary text to Fuentes’s Terra Nostra… Read More ›
Analysis of Horst Bienek’s The Cell
Long before the 20th century, prison literature was an old and varied genre ranging from the Consolations of Philosophy by the late Roman Empire writer Boethius to Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. Thus, while it is not new or unique to… Read More ›
Analysis of Colette’s The Cat
The popular author Colette (1873–1954) was born on January 28, 1873, in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, Burgundy, France. Author of more than 50 novels and numerous short stories, and articles for periodicals, she wrote from her early 20s through her mid-70s. This acclaimed… Read More ›
Analysis of Franz Kafka’s The Castle
The Castle is the last novel written by Czech author Franz Kafka (1883–1924). Kafka began to write the book in 1922 in a village and not, as it is tempting to imagine, in the shadow of Prague’s legendary castle. A… Read More ›
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